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Journalism of Courage
Bose Krishnamachari8217;s show is in the National Gallery of Modern Art8217;s round exhibition hall on its top most floor. And like any well-behaved circle, this space has no beginning and no end. A quality which can be ascribed to Bose8217;s work too. A site-specific work 8212; where he first choose the venue and then out-fitted his art to the gallery8217;s attributes 8212; it can be approached from any one of the 360 degrees without losing perspective.
Called Amusem Memoirs, the entire exhibition consist of one long-running work which is, to put it simply, about life and death in Bombay. Stretches of canvas painted cobalt blue form a high wall all around the gallery. And photographs pasted on this wall, which have gashes of deep paint over and around them, are like small windows to the citylife.
Unpainted, Bose has made sure that these bodies carry the proof of living scratches and scars are plenty on this familiar image of Bombay streets, quot;I was going home last night with my friends in the train and so many times they shouted out 8211; hey Bose, your work there!8217; That made me feel really good,quot; he grins. These sculptures, bought by Pritish Nandy, helped him pay the hefty Rs 90,000 fee hehad to pay the NGMA for hiring the space for 18 days.
His work also has more personal tones. Besides Bombay8217;s street life, Bose has put pictures of his friends mostly artists people who have made Bombay home for him. Hailing from Kerala, he says, in a way he was reborn in this city which an energy which no other place in India has The blue wall can be seen as the peace and quiet of Kerala with the deeper hues depicting the warmth and violence of Bombay. Coming here in 1986 when he was 23, he joined the Sir J J School of Art from where he was rusticated some years later when he spoke his mind to the press about some of the teachers. An intolerance of criticism which he says still exists.
And the institution whose fabric he is punching holes into right now is Museum. Walking around with gallery with its fantastic acoustics making the A/C hum sound like the deep rumbling breath of some giant creature, the feeling you get is of the nervousness which accompanies an adrenaline high 8212; an excitement whichonly Bombay can give because no other city is as violent.
Violence not of the war and bloodshed kind but a more subversive daily kind. Bose8217;s work, which on surface appears to be a record of his life and impressions of Bombay, is really about the wear and tear of the life here which spares nothing and nobody.
The wheel just keeps moving on and the pictures and people which Bose has pasted on the walls with glutinous slashes of paint are just fleeting images. quot;This work is sort of a Tagorean statement: that beginning is the end and the end is the origin. In Bombay, there is no space between life and death and museums are actually mausoleum 8212; they try to make things permanent when actually everything is impermanent,quot; he says. A characteristic of life which his work will share because it is not something which can be hung on the walls and preserved.
And Bose8217;s work is best treated as an encounter and with the same frame of mind you would have while meeting a new person or going for a new movie. As heputs it himself, quot;I don8217;t like people asking me what it means. I am not interested in meanings, I am interested only in experiences. At the National Gallery of Modern Art, Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Opp Prince of Wales Museum. Till February 28, 1999. Time: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm.
